Norwich: City of Churches

In Norwich, the 'City of Churches', Christopher Somerville encounters high thoughts and earthly pleasures

12:00AM BST 09 May 1998

SPRINGTIME in Norwich and everybody seemed to be at it. On the gravel path beside the River Wensum, two lovers were braving the nippy grey morning, literally in each other's pockets as they strolled beneath the willows.

Birds canoodled in the branches. A pair of mallard skimmed flat-out up the river, the beak of the testosterone-crazed drake almost touching the tail-feathers of his indifferent darling. The sound of her quacks, like derisive laughter, floated over as I watched the reflection of the ancient cathedral watergate at Pull's Ferry in the Wensum.

Norwich's wonderful heritage of medieval architecture was scarcely appreciated until this century. As late as the Thirties, the corporation was prepared to demolish the narrow, three-arched Bishop Bridge, upriver of Pull's Ferry. This is the oldest bridge in the city, brick-built in 1340, a beautiful and harmonious little gem, but only a last-minute intervention by conservationists - oddballs, they were reckoned then - saved it.

Upstream of the bridge, the ruined stump of Cow Tower stands on a crooked elbow of the river. For centuries it sheltered cattle, but when it was built for the city's defence, in 1399, it was a formidable stronghold.

That was an anxious year in East Anglia, when Henry Bolingbroke landed on the Lincolnshire coast to claim the throne. Norwich expected to be attacked. The tower's brick and flint walls were pierced for both archery and artillery.

In Norwich Cathedral, the dreamy sound of the organ under expert hands sifted through the nave. It suited the muted sandy-grey interior light of the building, whose outside walls - normally glinting with the hard white light of Caen limestone - looked muted and pearly.

This great Norman cathedral is rich in intimate detail and the human touch. I enjoyed the striking, modern Stations of the Cross, inlaid in polished wood. Hidden under the choir-stall seats is a riotous clutch of medieval misericords; they include a man riding a savage boar, two woodwoses clubbing each other, various demonic beasts and a Green Man.

Soon I had my binoculars focused on the carved and painted 15th-century bosses in the nave roof. Mr and Mrs Noah and family peeped out of the Ark's portholes, accompanied by a cheerfully smiling unicorn. A swaddled Moses was laid tenderly in a golden basket to float down a bevelled blue Nile. Pharaoh gasped in horror as the Red Sea swallowed him, his chariot and his soldiers. Adam and Eve, shapely in their nakedness, prepared to eat the golden fruit of the Tree of Knowledge.

The greatest of all the cathedral's treasures, a wonderfully painted reredos, stood behind the altar in St Luke's Chapel at the east end. It was given to the cathedral by Bishop Despenser in 1387 and was only saved from destruction at the hands of Puritan zealots three centuries later by being used as a table, with its Crucifixion and Resurrection scenes hidden face down.

This rare survivor of 14th- century English religious painting depicts the brutish satisfaction of the soldiers scourging Christ, a proud princeling riding behind the stumbling Saviour on the road to Calvary, a pale Virgin Mary fainting into the arms of St John at the foot of the cross, and a Resurrection scene in which Christ steps out of his coffin with calm dignity while his prostrate guards look up with coarse, fear-stiffened faces.

Outside the Cathedral Close, an effigy of Sir Thomas Erpingham kneels in full armour at the apex of an ornate gateway. Erpingham directed the English archers at the Battle of Agincourt in 1415 and had the gate built in thanksgiving for the victory.

If Norwich's vigilant conservationists of the Twenties had not intervened, the all-but-perfect medieval street of Elm Hill - cobbled, quiet, full of colour-washed gables and overhanging upper storeys - would have been demolished in the name of slum clearance and road improvements. But no reformer has succeeded in sweeping away the city's central market, which has been held for a thousand years.

T HE brightly striped awnings of the jam-packed stalls on the marketplace sheltered every saleable item known to man, from knicker elastic to silk thread, from apples to cheap watches. I hummed and hawed - then bought a fistful of dates from Gareth Butcher's stall in the centre of the maelstrom and chewed them on my way to the Church of St Peter Mancroft that closes the south side of the square.

Truly Norwich is the "City of Churches". There are 32 of them within the old medieval walls, none more striking than St Peter Mancroft with its glorious carved angel roof and 15th-century east window - a vivid stained-glass depiction of the Nativity, Crucifixion and Resurrection. But the most intriguing of all Norwich's church treats I found hidden away in an alley off King's Street, towards the end of the walk.

In the tiny, flint Church of St Julian, candles burned before the shrine of the anchoress Mother Julian, the author of Revelations of Divine Love (published by Penguin Classics), who opted to spend 43 years immured in a cell here after receiving, in 1373, a series of mysterious visions.

Anchoresses, although sealed off from outside contact, were not incommunicado. Neither were they necessarily humourless misanthropes. The "window on the world" through which they received food could also act as a conduit for gossip, advice and news. It certainly did for the witty "recluse atte Norwyche", who kept in touch through her two servants, Sara and Alice.

During her revelations, Mother Julian saw drops of Christ's blood as round as herring scales, his crucified body as dry and shrivelled as a cold wind, a lily-white child gliding up to heaven out of a bloated body, and the devil with "a young man's face, long and lean, the colour of a tilestone newly fired, and a foul and nauseating stench".

What did it all mean? "As I see it," wrote Mother Julian, "his words are the greatest that can be uttered, for they embrace . . . I cannot tell! All I know is that the joy I saw surpasses all the heart could wish for, or the soul desire."

I left the little chapel full of high thoughts. But they soon turned more earthy. Down on the Wensum, Norwich's lunchtime lovers were holding hands as if springtime and a young man's fancy had just been invented.

Getting there By rail (National Rail Inquiries 0345 484950) to Norwich. By car A47/A11/A140 to Norwich: car park on Riverside, 50yd south of railway station.

Walk directions Turn right along Riverside and on for half a mile beside river to three-arched Bishop Bridge. Left across bridge; continue beside river past Cow Tower. In 400yd, left beside flint wall towards cathedral. Pass Adam & Eve pub; left along Bishopgate. In 200yd, right through gates into cathedral close.

From west door of Norwich Cathedral, through Erpingham Gate. Right down Wensum Street; in 150yd left up Elm Hill. Left by Briton's Arms; right down Princes Street. Cross St Andrew Plain; left up Bridewell Alley; cross Bedford Street into Swan Lane. Right along London Street to Guildhall and St Peter Mancroft.

Through Royal Arcade at bottom of marketplace. Right at top below Norwich Castle; bear left around castle mound by Farmers Avenue and Cattle Market Street. Opposite Anglia TV, right down King Street. In a third of a mile on right, St Julian's Alley leads to St Julian's Church and Mother Julian's Shrine. Continue along King Street for a quarter of a mile; left across Carrow Bridge, left along Riverside path to station.